Quinault River - Pony Bridge

On Day 2 of our vacation we tackled the Quinault River-Pony Bridge Trail just past Lake Quinault.  You have to drive about 15 miles on a dirt road to get to the trailhead, so it takes a bit longer to get there than you might plan.  Once again, this trail took us into the Olympic National Park and we were surrounded by big trees!  This trailhead is a starting off point for lots of trails: Graves Creek, the Enchanted Valley Trail, even to cross the entire park and end up on the west side in Dosewallips (someday!)   Needless to say the trailhead was really crowded; easily 30 cars.

The trail has a couple bridges over the river right away and starts out as a converted forest road for the first couple miles.  It was really well maintained, though quite rocky in places.   Once again we were thankful that we've trained on Green Mountain in Kitsap County, because the steep, rocky trails have prepared us for these kinds of adventures.  Along the way we saw huge trees, a few horses on the trail and a really cool little pool that we decided was the fountain of youth :-)

As we came around the bend near Pony Bridge and saw the beautiful teal river below,  we understood why this trail is so popular.

The guidebook talks about being able to retreat back from the trail to find access down to the river, but we couldn't find a good spot.   We ventured past the bridge along the river to find  several small trails that look like campers have created.  We ate our snack here and enjoyed the solitude of the river.   

 As we were hiking back we heard a familiar call in the forest, it was the same sound the owls made that we saw on the Wildcat Lake trail.   We slowed down and kept following the sound until we finally saw it up in the tree!!   We watched him for quite a while and then waited for some hikers we saw coming up the trail so we could point him out.   They were really excited to see it too and started snapping photos. Of course, a little owl in a dark forest is hard to capture with a small hiking camera...

The hike was great and so was the drive home.  We took the North Shore route back along Lake Quinault, and it was beautiful.

Along the drive we were stopped by a passing car of tourists from Germany who were worried they were lost.  Apparently, if you're German, Chris has an accent that makes him sound likes he's from Texas.      (That really bugged him!)    It was another incredible day in ONP, amazing views, beautiful sunny weather and the best companion I could ever have.

South Fork Hoh - Big Flat

For our vacation we decided to stay at Ocean Shores and use that as a launching point for day hikes into the Hoh Rainforest and surrounding areas in the Olympic National Park.  Finding a place around Lake Quinault would have meant a lot less driving, but waking up to the ocean every morning was awesome.  We had great weather all week - sunny days are rare in the rainforest so we felt very fortunate!  

Our first adventure was the South Fork Hoh-Big Flat trail.    Unfortunately,  we didn't follow the guidebook exactly for mileage waypoints and ended up at the wrong spot.  We weren't the only ones, two other carloads of hikers were there too and they told us the bridge was washed out and the trail inaccessible.   We decided we'd come too far to let a little washout keep us from the trail, so we put on our bad-ass faces and ventured out. 

We crossed the creek and headed onto an abandoned forest road we thought was the way to the trail.  it started out fairly accessible, but as we got deeper in the woods it got more overgrown.  After another creek crossing it became inaccessible - and really, really, really buggy.    We turned back and tried another road we had seen off to the right thinking it might lead us to the trail,  but all we found was an abandoned lean-to probably used by a hunter years ago.   We gave up and returned to the parking lot, disappointed that the trail had been left to the elements and no longer existed.  We decided to check out the nearby campground and had the realization that the turn to the campground had the real entrance sign that the guidebook talked about, and that we probably were in the wrong place.  So we followed the road past the campground and it started to match the guidebook exactly.  Here's our lesson for the day:  Match the mileage to the guidebook!!  The combination of other hikers telling us the trail was washed out along with the guidebook saying there was no trailhead sign made us think we were int he right place. Had we followed the mileage waypoints better we would have found the right place much sooner!

The real trail was clearly marked and it was beautiful;  clover lined and full of really, really big trees!

We had to cross a couple creeks along the way but they weren't too difficult to navigate. Because of late start due to our misadventure, we had to make Big Flat our destination rather than the South Fork Hoh so we would be sure to make it back to the car by dark.   We were really sad we didn't have time to go the whole way,  but so glad we found the real trail and got to enjoy the area.



Even with our mis-start and all the bugs,  we had a really great day.  Finally getting in to the Olympic National Park and seeing real old-growth forest was so worth it.  This trail was a little bit overgrown in places, but that didn't pose a problem. We didn't see another soul on the trail even though there were two cars at the parking lot.  Considering our late start we assumed they must have gone up camping somewhere.   Someday maybe we'll make it back to go all the way to the South Fork destination, but that's so hard for us to do with so many trails yet unexplored.  We did learn a couple of valuable lessons about following directions and having better maps!